Archives for August 2007

Labor Day Weekend. Some people grill. Not me. No way. Too labor intensive. Some people get in their cars and drive. I’d rather bang my head against the wall for an hour. I hate driving. There are folks who bop on over to their relatives to enjoy a congenial family circle.

Sigh.

No family in Los Angeles.

Offspring #2 and #3 are back East. Everyone is back East — or in Israel.

So, I’ve rummaged through my library and chosen my list of movies to watch over the Long Labor Day Weekend.

But look, I’m not going to tell you to watch Casablanca, or Citizen Kane. You know about the usual suspects already. I’m here to urge you to take a look at a few little-known gems that are now on DVD, movies that you probably missed, but absolutely must see because they are just amazing, better than anything playing in the theaters right now.

There’s no theme here, just a bunch of movies that I really love and want to share with you. So, grab your favorite blankie—Karen gave me a cowboy blanket a few years ago that I chew when watching movies—curl up on your couch and hit the PLAY button.

The storytelling is lean, taut and raw. Kirk Douglas’ Indian wife is raped and murdered by Anthony Quinn’s son. Douglas and Quinn used to be best friends. Douglas is now a lawman. Quinn, a powerful rancher.

Not a shot or line of dialog is wasted. The suspense builds as Douglas nabs his man and tries to board the 9:00 train from Gun Hill. Carolyn Jones (converted to Judaism when she married producer Aaron Spelling—hey, I couldn’t resist.) has a great supporting role as Quinn’s bitter mistress who, against her own self-interest, aids the badly out-gunned Douglas. The performance by Kirk Douglas has the power of Greek tragedy. A neglected classic.

Fonda, a rich kid, has been up the Amazon, studying snakes for a few years. Stanwyck, a con-artist, takes one look at Fonda and says: “I need him like the axe needs the turkey.” Sturges wrote this script in Reno while awaiting his third divorce. Hmmm.

Stanwyck is, naturally, after Fonda’s fortune. Fonda is bumbling, clueless. There’s a classic scene where Stanwyck has maneuvered Fonda into her stateroom on board an ocean liner. She gets him down on his knees, slyly has him change her “slippers.” Fonda, who has not seen a woman in years, is positively melting. This might be the sexiest scene in the history of the movies, yet there is no nudity, no kisses are exchanged — and it is hilarious. I have seen this movie a dozen times and it is always fresh, bursting with energy.

3. Fixed Bayonets! 1951, The Korean war has never been a favorite for Hollywood storytellers. But writer slash director Samuel Fuller, family name originally Rabinovitch, isn’t much interested in the politics of North and South Korea. As always, Fuller concentrates on the human emotions of his central characters. Richard Baseheart plays a corporal who watches in terror as every officer above him in the chain of command is killed. Baseheart does not want to lead. He can’t even squeeze the trigger to kill an enemy soldier. Look, the sets are cheap, production values are crap, but this is a fine film because Fuller understands combat—he fought with The Big Red One in World War Two—and he cares about the ordinary GI.

The story is simple: a platoon is fighting a rear-guard action against an entire North Korean regiment. It’s a suicide mission. There’s a brilliant scene where the members of the platoon stand and watch the American army retreating along a muddy road. The GI’s left behind know that they are as good as dead. The retreating GI’s can barely look at the men who are being left behind. The music echoes eerily. Not a word of dialog is spoken. Here is war stripped to its most elemental form.

By the way, see if you can spot James Dean here in his first movie role, with three words of dialog.

4. Duck, You Sucker 1972, Rod Steiger and James Coburn star in Sergio Leone’s neglected masterpiece. Coburn plays an I.R.A. dynamite expert who has come to Mexico to continue his, er, activities, on behalf of the revolution. Steiger is a filthy bandit with no interest in politics. Naturally, these two very different characters join forces.

This film was not quite a Spaghetti Western, and the title, well, it sounds just dopey, but believe me, this is not to be missed. There’s a sequence where the camera does a simple pan as Mexican soldiers slaughter innocent people trapped in a series of ditches; the camera just casually sweeps along, no cuts, no close-ups, just one long take, and the brutality is just overwhelming. Leone was operatic in the best sense of the word and this might be his greatest film.

5. Strange Cargo 1940, Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. This is one of Crawford’s greatest performances. Director Frank Borzage carefully guides her performance and does not let her fall back on her old and reliable mannerisms. She’s stripped of all glamor, movie star make-up, and no stunning wardrobe in which to flounce around. Here, she’s a hard-hearted “saloon girl” who undergoes a spiritual rebirth during an escape with a gang of convicts from Devil’s Island. Gable plays against type as a hard-edged, dangerous convict; the chemistry between Gable and Crawford is just off the charts. This is a powerful film, and a great pairing of two huge stars. We will not see their kind ever again. Guaranteed.

6.Point Blank, 1967. This might be the toughest most relentless revenge-driven movie ever made. Lee Mar
vin strides through abstract urban landscapes, killing one criminal after another, trying to collect a debt of $93,000. He’s been betrayed by everyone, including his wife. This film redefines the modern crime thriller. It’s in a whole other category and Marvin is at the top of his game. Director John Boorman is confident of every camera placement. The dialog is crisp and clipped. The screenplay was written by Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse & Rafe Newhouse. I’ve heard from several sources that Marvin had a great deal of input into the final script. Use of sound is masterful, brilliant. The movie’s final sequence in the abandoned Alcatraz Prison Island is haunting; and in retrospect I now understand that this film was the last great film noir to come out of Hollywood. This is definitely a guy’s film. It’s violent and yet strangely poetic. There are moments of great tenderness as Marvin expresses an almost boyish love for his double-dealing wife. Point Blank is the odyssey of a tender man transformed into a violent juggernaut by betrayal and disappointment. Lee Marvin’s performance is riveting, probably the most disciplined of his career, as he becomes an avenging angel in pursuit of money—and his lost humanity.

This is an epic movie about a Samurai who fights for money. Yup, you heard me right, money. It’s the end of the Edo period in Kyoto and Kanichiro Yoshimura, born Menachem Yosselovich—no, I’m just messing with you— just wants to make enough money to support his family. His quarrelsome fellow Samurai view him as dishonorable, a money-grubbing mercenary.

The flashback structure of this movies is beautiful and multi-layered. I don’t want to give too much away except to tell you that it’s an elegy for a good man and a master warrior as seen through the eyes of his most fierce opponent.

Oh, and the sword-play is breath-taking. I chewed my blankie to shreds. It badly needs mending.

The screenplay by the remarkable Takehiro Nakajima is a structural masterpiece, and should be studied by all screenwriters and aspiring screenwriters.

This movies understands honor, loyalty, and the abiding love between a man, a woman and their children — the unit that keeps the earth on its axis. By the end of this film my face was wet with tears.I invite all my readers to chime in with their Labor Day Weekend movie picks.

Karen and I wish all our Seraphic friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.

They use all the familiar grievances: the occupation of Palestinian lands, the oppression of the Palestinian people, blah, blah blah. But look, the Egyptians don’t give a crap about the so-called Palestinians, never have. They have them locked up in Gaza—I’m talking air-tight—and the only thing that gets into Gaza from the Egyptian border are Kalachnikovs, Qassam Rockets, and other implements of destruction — courtesy of The Muslim Brotherhood, who bribe the Egyptian border guards, or threaten to kill their families if they don’t cooperate.

No, Egypt hated Israel long before there was any so-called occupation.

Flashback: 1948, the U.N. declares a partition plan for separate Jewish and Arab states. Helloo, the Palestinian state they are always claiming they want; well they had it, and they threw it away.

Stunning, huh?

“The Arabs,” as Abba Eben once said, “never miss a chance to miss a chance.”

Back to our exciting narrative: Egypt, the most prestigious Arab power in the region, with the largest army, rejects the international partition plan, and along with four other Arab armies, including a so-called Palestinian Brigade, invades the newly-born State of Israel, promising to “drive the Jews into the sea.”

No, not for a nice, refreshing swim.

Egyptian broadcasters in Cairo urge Arabs in Israel to flee and return after the Jews are slaughtered—to collect the spoils of war. Those Jooz are just swimming in money. It says so in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; favorite bed time reading in the Arab world.

The Arabs lose the war, and gee, what do you know, the Egyptians don’t want to take responsibility for the fleeing Arabs, an inconvenient, angry mob massing on their borders. What happened to the promised spoils of war?

Let’s not forget Anwar Sadat: the Egyptian President bravely flies to Jerusalem and signs a peace treaty with Israel. Soon afterward, he is assassinated by The Muslim Brotherhood, who publicly and proudly explain that they eliminated Sadat as a traitor for making peace with the Zionist entity. Anwar Sadat’s passing is deeply mourned in Israel—not in the Arab world.

So let’s dispense with this nonsense about occupation.

The hatred and desire to eliminate the State of Israel and remove the 3,000 year old Jewish presence in Israel is ancient, rooted in Islamic religious doctrine and Pan Arabic national hatred.

How is it, the Egyptians, and every other Arab/Muslim nation ask themselves, that Israel, barely 60 years old, the size of a postage stamp, is a military giant, an economic juggernaut, and we in the Arab world can’t even produce flush toilets?

Makes for some deeply shameful feelings, and a culture that simply refuses to take responsibility for its own failures.

The Arab/Muslim world is dysfunctional, it tells itself, because, um, the Zionists, the Americans, and the Christians have conspired to make it so.

And so on.

It is deeply telling that in the case that follows below, the hostility in Egypt is from the left, not from the Muslim Brotherhood. In other words, the left wingers in Egypt, so called secular and western-influenced, agree with the Jihadists on one crucial issue: Israel is a virus that cannot be tolerated.

Sound familiar? Yes, indeed, the left in Egypt mirror the left in America and Europe in their Jew-hatred cleverly disguised as “mere anti-Zionism.”

Anywhoo.

Let’s turn to the leftie Egyptian’s and their outrage at one of their own for, get this, having the chutzpah to appear in a movie with an Israeli/Jew.

The horror! The horror!

The chairman of Egypt’s Actors’ Union said Thursday that the group planned to investigate one of the country’s brightest young movie stars for appearing in an upcoming miniseries with an Israeli actor.

This is an excellent resource about world-wide jihad from New York to Jerusalem and it’s free. We strongly urge all our Seraphic Friends to bookmark this site. If you want to understand the existential battle being waged against the West by the Muslim radicals, this is the place to go.

Emerson is one of our finest counter-terrorism experts. The fifth columnists in America fear and loathe him—a sure sign that Mr. Emerson is doing his job. He is never quoted in the New York Times, another sign that Emerson is an expert in his field. When Mr. Emerson appears as a guest on TV, Jihadist apologists are, invariably, made to look foolish under his cool and relentless barrage of facts. They end up accusing Mr. Emerson of being anti-Islamic.

Sometimes without us knowing it, legal standards change suddenly. It happened today, when the Investigative Project on Terrorism launched its public (and free!) website. I was fortunate enough to receive an advance demonstration of it last week, and came away stunned. Information that has been questioned, sometimes through accusations about the motives of the messengers, is now available to everyone. Anyone with access to the Internet can now see and hear audio and video recordings of Islamic American leaders making statements that have frequently been denied. The truth can sometimes be inconvenient. I predict that, in some future judicial proceeding, August 29, 2007 will be recognized as the moment when those legally charged with the responsibility of “due diligence” and knowing the details of the Islamic threat to our institutions — journalists, academics, bankers, and government officials — will no longer be able to claim plausible deniability. Steve Emerson and his staff, led by Michael Fechter, have performed an amazing public service.

The website is an absolute boom for those of us involved in public commentary and education about counterterrorism. Now, we can finally get beyond debates over whether someone actually said or wrote something to the more interesting question of the implications. I expect the debates to get sharper, and the analysis more refined, since there will no longer be disagreements over basic facts. Hopefully, this will be on immediate display on the Counterterrorism Blog. I encourage all of our readers to get acquainted with this remarkable new tool.

Well, obviously you have not been paying attention to the Flight 93 Memorial designed by Paul Murdoch of Los Angeles.

The Flight 93 Memorial murders those good people over and over and over again.

I know nothing about Mr. Murdoch except what I glean from his design and it is this: he has no compassion for the victims, nor for the relatives, loved ones and friends of the victims; he enables jihad by appeasement and surrender to the symbols of our Arab/Muslim enemies. His design spits on the graves of the dead, and celebrates the murderers.

Murdoch’s design is a disgrace; he should be fired and his design relegated to the ash heap of history along with Soviet Socialist realism. It is on the exact same level.

This high-profile appearance is no fluke. General Petraeus is fighting back against the Iraqi defeatists with his own PR machine. Petraeus, more than any other fighting general, understands the importance of propaganda. Let’s hope that we will see many more appearances by Nagl and other fine soldiers who speak so eloquently for our country and our troops.

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About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California

I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.

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